North East Division SCCA Formula B 1971

Formula B continued to grow in the north east, with 20 cars scoring points in the 1971 season. The Glen Nationals in August attracted 25 entries, including 14 Formula Bs. While 1970 had been an even fight between a number of regions, with five clubs represented in the top six places, 1971 was dominated by New England Region, especially by Lotus importer Fred Stevenson and his customer Bob Hebert. Stevenson had the latest 1971-spec Lotus 69 FB car while Hebert's, although described as a 69, may have been his 1970 59B updated.

Michael Rand had bought Matt Spitzley's Brabham BT29 and finished third ahead of John Sirmons who had bought one of the latest - and rather disappointing - Lola T240s. Also in brand new cars were Nick Craw (Brabham BT35) and Chuck Sarich (Lola T240). New FB constructor March continued to make progress in Northeast with Steve Mandy, Seb Barone, Joe Grimaldi and John Girdler all running 1970 or 1971 Marchs. Chevron was represented by Tom Outcault and Craig Fisher, both in one-year-old Chevron B17Bs.

Final standings

1.

Fred Stevenson

Lotus [69]

NE

54 pts

2.

Bob Hebert

Lotus ['69B']

NE

41 pts

3.

Michael Rand

Brabham [BT29]

NE

35 pts

4.

John Sirmons

Lola [T240]

NE

16 pts

5.

Wayne Ricciardi

Brabham [BT29]

No NJ

16 pts

6.

Nick Craw

Brabham [BT35]

Wash

15 pts

7.

Tom Outcault

Chevron [B17B]

No NJ

13 pts

8.

Chuck Sarich

Lola [T240]

Wash

12 pts *

9.

John Girdler

March [71BM]

NY

10 pts

10.

[Craig] Fisher

Chevron [B17B]

No NJ

4 pts

11.

Steve Mandy

March

NE

4 pts

12.

Seb Barone

March

NE

4 pts

13.

Dave Ober

Brabham [BT29]

NE

4 pts

14.

Ken Duclos

Brabham [BT29]

NE

3 pts

15.

Tom Reddy

Brabham [BT29]

NE

3 pts

16.

Roger Barr

Crosslé

NE

2 pts

17.

Phil Geraldi

Brabham [BT29]

NY

2 pts

18.

Joe Grimaldi

March

No NJ

2 pts

19.

Ted Thomas

Brabham

SC1

2 pts *

20.

Ted Coconis

Lotus

NE

1 pt

* Indicates total includes points earned out of home divisions.

1SC is Steel Cities Region. 2SJ is South Jersey Region.

Northeast Division sources

Most of our knowledge of NEDiv racing comes from the SCCA's Sports Car magazine and from Competition Press & Autoweek. We are very keen to acquire or borrow 1960s, 1970s and 1980s copies of SCCA regional publications from this Division. These include:

Pit Talk (New England Region)

The Drift (Steel Cities Region)

Knock Off (Mohawk-Hudson Region)

Regional Review (New York Region)

Spark Plug (Glen Region)

The Spokesmen (Philadelphia Region)

The Straightpipe (Washington DC Region)

Top End Magazine (Finger Lakes Region)

Additionally, Racing Magazine was published as a Lime Rock track magazine.

We are also keen to get scans of entry lists from SCCA Nationals in this Division.

The top three from each Division were invited to the Run-Offs in November to decide a national champion.

The most competitive Division was Central with seven brand new cars appearing, followed by Northeast with five, Midwest with four, NorPac with three, Southeast with one. The Southern Pacific table isn't available but two of the three Run-Offs qualifiers had 1971 cars. For comparison, approximately eight new cars appeared in the 1971 British Formula Atlantic series.

The research

The Pro series results here have been compiled by using reports from the weekly US newspaper Competition Press & Autoweek plus entry lists from race programs where available. The results are complete but qualifying times are rarely known and entry numbers are missing for five of the six races. Please get in touch if you have any programs from these races.